Installing and Configuring vBulletin

In the right-hand pane you get information about the version—notice how we are being told that there is a newer version of vBulletin available. That's a really handy feature, and later on we'll show you how to upgrade the forum software quickly and easily.

We suggest that you spend some going through the menus and familiarizing yourself with the options and settings available—especially if this is your first installation of vBulletin. We will pick up the tour of the vBulletin Control Panel in Chapter 3. Now we need to go and look at importing data from another discussion board into vBulletin.

Importing Data into vBulletin

If you are moving to vBulletin from another type of discussion board, then there is a good chance that you won't want to lose all the posts that you already have and start again with nothing. And it's not just the posts that are important—what about all your member information—usernames, passwords, profile data? You don't want to lose all that and start with a blank forum!

To make migration easier, the vBulletin development team has created a Import/Export script (called the ImpEx script).

Downloading the ImpEx Script

The ImpEx script is available from the Member Area on the vBulletin site. This means that you need a valid license to be able to download it.

After downloading the script, you will need to extract the files into a convenient location (just as you did with the vBulletin installation files).

Compatibility

The following boards are supported in the ImpEx script:

•IPB (version 2)

•phpBB (version 2.0.4 - 2.0.11 MySQL and MSSQL))

•Infopop eve (EVE: version 1.2.6, UBB.x forum module: version 4.0.3)

•IPB (version 1.1 - 1.3)

•wBB (version 2)

•Ubb_classic (version 6.3 - 6.7)

•Open Topic & Ubb.x

•DCFm (DCForum+ MySQL backend)

•YaBB SE (version 1.5.5)

•Ubb_threads (version 6.4)

•vBulletin 3 (version 3.0.x -> vB 3.0.x)

•Snitz (version 3.4.x MySQL and MSSQL)

•Ikonboard MySQL (version 3.x)

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Installing and Configuring vBulletin

•Freethreads

•W-agora

•ttCMS

•Simpleboard—mambo server

•Allaire

•dotnetBB

•Beta support for vBzoom

Preparing for Upload

When the unzipping progress is complete, you will find that the process has created a new folder called xxxxxxxx.impex (where xxxxxxxx is the license number of your vBulletin license).

Within this folder you will find another folder called upload. This folder contains the ImpEx files that need to be uploaded to your web server.

Editing the Configuration File

However, you're not ready to upload just yet. First you must make some changes to the ImpEx configuration file. This file is located in the impex subfolder of the upload folder and is called

ImpExConfig.php.new.

As before, the first thing you must do is rename this file from ImpExConfig.php.new to ImpExConfig.php (removing the .new extension). This step is in place to make sure that you remember to edit the file!

To edit the ImpExConfig.php file, you will need to open the file in a text editor such as Windows WordPad. (Again, the use of Windows Notepad is not recommended, as Notepad has problems displaying line breaks.)

The settings in this file need to be edited in order to get the script working. The settings that require editing are divided into two groups.

•Target database

•Source database

Target Database Settings

The target database is the database that will be having data imported into it by the script.

•targetdatabasetype—Enter the type of database here. This is usually mysql.

•targetserver—This sets the address of your database server. On most installations

the database server is located on the same computer as the web server, in which case the address should be set to localhost, otherwise use the address of the database server as supplied by your web host.

•targetuser—This contains the username to connect to your target database.

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